A “Cure-All” For Rape? Concerned Women For America Not Very Concerned About Women At All

This week, while we were busy trying to get military insurance coverage for raped servicewomen, the anti-abortion group Concerned Women for America (CWA), showed us that they aren’t really that concerned about women at all.

In a letter to the Senate opposing the Shaheen amendment, CWA said the amendment would be giving “abortion as a ‘cure-all'” for rape.

This outrageous statement shows just how little CWA knows about how sexual violence affects women. Women need access to a full range of health care services, including abortion care, following a sexual assault. However, the suggestion that any single element of health care–or any single thing for that matter–could act as a “cure-all” for rape is absurd and insulting. Ironically, this rhetoric shows little concern for women and minimizes the impact of a sexual assault.

Saying abortion is a “cure-all” for rape is like saying a band aid is a cure-all for cancer.

Tell CWA that there is no “cure-all” for rape and send them a band aid.

NAF will send CWA one band aid stamped with #nocureall4rape between now and December 31 every time someone:

Of course, if they were TRULY concerned, they would fight the “rape culture” and try to stop rape from happening in the first place.

vacabella

What does that even mean – a “cure-all for rape”? wouldn’t a cure-all for rape be a good thing? how on earth would abortion be a cure fora rape, CWA? If I am raped and I get pregnant, how would abortion “cure” the rape? AND WHY DON’T YOU WANT RAPE CURED?!

Sorry for yelling. I know, I know, I am trying to apply logic to backward thinking like this and that is a recipe for failure. How long do we have to talk about these things before these groups understand?

colleen

how on earth would abortion be a cure fora rape

Concerned Women for America aren’t even minimally concerned about women, they’re concerned about America and this, from the perspective of a tool for the professional right, means returning women to their proper place as subservient morons using their sorry, well funded selves as role models. I once heard a CWfA spokeperson argue on national television that we don’t have a problem with overpopulation because every person in the country could fit onto a land mass the size of Rhode Island. Problem solved.

johann7

On the other hand, abortion (safe, legal, and universally-accessible) IS a cure-all for unwanted/forced pregnancy, which is a good thing. Fuck off, CWA; keep your ideologies the hell away from my uterus-having-friends’ bodies.

crowepps

Apparently Concerned Women thinks it’s a package deal. Since the abortion doesn’t contain a time machine that magically transports the woman back to prevent the rape, since she’s already suffered the assault, the unwanted sex, the physical injuries and the emotional trauma, well, she might as well continue to suffer for another nine months, because, hey, since all sex is supposed to end in a baby, why should the rape end before getting to that ‘natural’ conclusion they’re so obsessed with.

Of course they don’t want rape cured. If rape was cured, women wouldn’t have to be Concerned anymore. They would be able to live free lives integrated into society, following their own interests and inclination. Rape culture is one of the most effective mechanisms conservatives have to terrify women into tolerating marriage.